Thanks Chamekke for sharing your wealth of knowledge on the tea ceremony! It is so interesting. I love matcha and am very interested now to try koicha, thanks to your posts! I just got my first matcha bowl and I love it.

How different do those 3 taste? I am wondering if it's worth the $ to order Tenju instead of Choan and Eiju. And whether Choan taste much better than Eiju since it's only few bucks more. Oh and how many cups (let say a 3oz cup) can a 20g can Matcha make?

Thanks!

Have you had a lot of matcha before?

I think if you are new to matcha, you should just buy the cheaper stuff. I just bought 3 different cans of matcha from them:
Sosho Shihousai favoured Hagi no Shiro 100g 4,725yen
Tenju Matcha 20g 4,200yen
Unkaku Matcha 20g 1,628yen

I have been drinking a lot of the Hagi no shiro because I have a lot of it. I finished my can of Unaku, which I thought was very good, and I haven't opened my Tenju, because I want to be able to finish all of my matcha without it going bad.

Even the cheaper matcha is quite good for usucha, the foamy, thin tea. Of course the expensive stuff is great for ushucha as well.

I also think you should buy a couple of kinds of marukyu koyamaen matcha, because its all good tea, and you can compare and contrast. Don't buy a big can unless you can finish it fairly quickly as the stuff goes bad quickly.

joelbct wrote:Well, try experimenting with the temperature and amount, like you would with any tea. Use the suggestions as a baseline, and go from there. I'm not even sure what the "official" line is on matcha water temperature, but 170 or 160 even seems to work for me. 180 might kill some of the flavor.

The temperature is indeed a little lower for koicha. In tea ceremony there is a distinct pause between when you first mix the matcha with a little water, to make a super-thick paste*, and when - a little later - you add enough hot water to make it the correct consistency. (If you think of the consistency of chocolate when it is melted, that's just about perfect.)

So, even though the tea bowl is heated with hot rinse water and then dried prior to making the koicha, nonetheless there is still a little cooling that goes on between steps 1 and 2, and again more cooling before the bowl is served to the guest. (I'm always amazed at just how quickly it cools down... and how the viscosity of the koicha increases accordingly!)

There is also a difference in water temperature depending on the season. This is from An Introduction to Japanese Tea Ritual by Jennifer L. Anderson:

By furo [summer] season, tea powder has theoretically become weak with age (the tea is supposed to have been harvested in the spring of the previous year). For this reason the lid of the water jar is removed, enabling the host to add a dipper full of cold water to the kettle. Doing so lowers the water temperature, which in turn, protects the delicate flavor of the tea. Only two or three tablespoons of hot water are added to the tea bowl for every three grams of tea powder. The beverage is supposed to be very thick and viscous.

*If you've ever mixed cornstarch into a very thick paste, then gradually added more water to make a thinner liquid that can then be added to sauce as a thickener ... you've got the right idea

For people who are new to koicha, I would suggest starting with a single serving. It's pretty potent stuff.

Note: if it's too thick, the koicha simply sticks to the side of the chawan and you're very lucky to get even a mouthful. (This is particularly the case as it cools.) That photograph may be a case in point. Sadly, in tea ceremony you're not allowed to lick the bowl clean with your tongue. Of course I'd never do that at home

In tea ceremony there is a consolation prize of sorts - you can haiken (look at, examine) the bowl after everyone has drunk from it. At this point it's traditional to admire the "landscape" of the remnants of the koicha in the chawan. And if the bowl is black raku, it's an especially beautiful sight.

I tried my hand at making koicha for the first time a few days ago, and the result was not good. It seemed bitter and unpleasant. I used Ippodo's Horai-no-mukashi: 3 heaping (bamboo) teaspoons sifted into preheated chawan, 60 ml water. Although it was pretty thick, it did still flow, but it tasted awful. Is it possible that I just don't like koicha? I really like usucha and have loved every bowl I've made. Could I have done something wrong?